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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Switzerland Tourism Fools Me

As I read the Tages Anzeiger this morning, I came upon an article with the headline “Felsenputzer entgernen Vogeldreck.” I wasn’t 100% sure what this meant, and as I read the article, I discovered it was something about the Swiss scrubbing their mountains clean.

This wouldn’t surprise me.

At work, I looked up the words and asked my colleague to confirm what I now found utterly amazing.

“Yes. It says they are cleaning bird shit off the mountains,” he said.

Well. Since the Swiss scrub trash cans at public transport hubs, clean my street every morning, and even have a police force to deal with people disobeying trash laws, the whole bird poop thing didn’t actually seem that strange.

Then my colleague pointed to the date above the article—April 1.

“It must be a joke,” he said.

No! I really wanted it to be true. I looked further for clues.

Further back in the paper was a job advertisement from Swiss Tourism looking for “bird shit cleaners”. This got me to their website where I discovered the most interesting and interactive advertising campaign I have seen in my three years in Switzerland. And it was launched on April Fool’s Day no less. Brilliant. It’s like the Swiss are actually making fun of themselves. Is this possible?

OK, one last thing and I will let the joke die. I did take the "aptitude test" to sign up to be a mountain pooh cleaner and I got a little e-mail yesterday saying "Glad you enjoy a good joke!" The pure genius of it all is that it's not so far fetched to believe that the Swiss would have such a team. I am sure I am not the only one who signed up out of curiosity...

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About the Author

I’m an American writer who moved to Switzerland in 2006 and am now back in the US to determine if I can live anywhere else after being in a country filled with cheese, chocolate, and people who can pronounce my name. The author of Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I'd Known www.swisslifebook.com, and 99.9 Ways to Travel Switzerland Like a Local www.swisstravelbook.com, I have written about Switzerland for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN Travel, and many other publications.
Visit: www.chantalpanozzo.com